In bankrupt San Bernardino, a third of the city's 210,000 people live below the poverty line, making it the poorest city of its size in California. But a police lieutenant can retire in his 50s and take home $230,000 in one-time payouts on his last day, before settling in with a guaranteed $128,000-a-year pension. Forty-six retired city employees receive over $100,000 a year in pensions.

No worries, they can always pay for that by having libraries only open 4 days a week, shutting down public parks & pools, and not providing books and computers for school children. Gotta make sure those public servants are comfortable in their pre-retirement retirement.

""But a police lieutenant can retire in his 50s and take home $230,000 in one-time payouts on his last day, before settling in with a guaranteed $128,000-a-year pension. Forty-six retired city employees receive over $100,000 a year in pensions. ""

I'll say what I always say about these cases: as long as the citizens are a) aware, and b) can afford to pay them -- more power to the workers for getting an absurdly great deal. If either of those are no longer true, than it becomes either simple theft or fraud. Years in municipal finance were sufficient to show me that the majority of the time it's either stealing from taxpayers, or fraud, in these large cities.

The local Kinder music teacher at the public school down the road is early 40s, and makes $120k+ annually, incl benefits, for working 8.5 months out of the year, 7 hr days with 1-hr lunch break, and every 10-15 years gets a paid year sabbatical.

Now, I live in a UMC area, and parents/taxpayers have prioritized this kind of public spending on school, and the schools are good, AND, most importantly they can afford it. So YAY teachers! [And I mean that sincerely. And I have no doubt she is good at her job.]

Illinois can not do this. Chicago can not. NYC can not. Most LA cities can no longer afford this, even in Silicon Valley.

The upcoming war in every large city, county, and overleveraged Blue State of Pensions v Schools is going to be a very interesting and bloody one. You can afford only one or the other, and I haven't even mentioned HC yet.

Illinois Teachers retirement fund has something like $35b in assets and owes $387b in pensions btw now and 2035. Do the math.

Oh, and invest accordingly. For anyone willing to take their head out of the sand, pionline gives a non-partisan scoop on these issues frequently, with interviews with all sides. [Well, except Joe Taxpayer, but ya know, can only do so much.]

1 - I didn't write that article. Thus, addressing any comment directly to me is rather odd in the extreme (though your posting history is a bit colorful in that way so perhaps random off-the-cuff nonsensical posting is something that is just one's style).

2 - I actually don't have any issue with folks who get 100k pensions (course, to pay for a 128k pension would require $7.3 million in assets at current 10 year treasury rates). Police officers and fireman do an outstanding job and no one would begrude them both appropriate compensation and a chance to maximize their pay and pensions. I certainly don't have a problem with the union or any attempt to influence a vote.

3 - The real issue seems to be that these sorts of salaries and benefits and pensions are simply not sustainable. I wish it were not so, but clearly there is a price to pay here. As written, the clear villian in the piece is Mr. Penman and Calpers, which if true in the later case sets the stage for a momentum disaster for all involved.

The local Kinder music teacher at the public school down the road is early 40s, and makes $120k+ annually, incl benefits...

naj, I was just curious - never heard of Kindermusik and it seems like a business that people can run, not a job paid to public employees. Thus, I'm confused by what you mean here. The school system pays her 120k annually or she earns it from her "Kindermusik family" affiliation?

It wasn't my intent to "degenerate" this board into a series of non-stock specific posts ala the typical mind-and-time-wasting word filled Fox/MSNBC rants and idiocies that populate the Best of Fool boards on what used to be the best stock discussion boards on the internet.

Following my own advice, I will stop posting on this topic and will take a short break.

Central Falls, R.I., Sept 3 (Reuters) - Central Falls, in Rhode Island, is close to emerging from bankruptcy with a plan that hammers its retired municipal employees but leaves bondholders unscathed, in a contrast with other recent U.S. municipal bankruptcies.

On Thursday, a state-appointed receiver overseeing the finances of the tiny, impoverished city is expected to win court approval for a plan that rescues Central Falls from financial collapse and should balance its budget for at least the next five years.

Unlike the approach of some other U.S. states such as California, which left struggling cities to try to fix their finances on their own, the plan for Central Falls reassured the credit markets, but scarred the city.

Credit markets don't need either of them.2009 may look like a long time back. But the lessons of it are "credit markets" really needed the tax-payers, of which Central Falls and Pensioners included.

Perhaps, we should change the FDIC coverage such that an institution level cap of $100 B or $200 B for FDIC coverage for deposits to be introduced. That would bring some clarity about who is actually back-stopping the banks, and bank rolling the wall street casinos.

For the most part it's fire fighters and police that get the absurd pensions paying sometimes 3-4x in yearly retirement pay what they made on their last base salary. Teachers don't get to juice up their final two years pay with real or phantom OT like firefighters and police do or at least certainly not to same ridiculous levels.

I know a retired police sergeant from southern Cali who told me his pension is $20k/month and based on the life style he enjoys it's quite believable.

Police sergeant with $60k base salary on 28 years of service seems pretty reasonable or even low paid to most folks as that's right around $30/hour. However, if the last two years if you work 100 hours a week; 40 base hours, 10 hours at 2x rate, and rest at 3x rate for example. That gives you effectively 210 hours/week in pay or just over $300k/year. Do that for the last two years and then your pension is 80% of the average of your last two years results in a pension of $240k/year or $20k/month.

That's essentially what is happening when you see these crazy police/fire fighter pensions. No private industry management would condone or allow that kind of artificial pension juicing but police and fire department management will generally not only tolerate it but actively facilitate it.